Emergency drone idea doesn't fly

Some of the major wireless carriers and public safety organizations are shooting down an idea by the Federal Communications Commission that would allow the launch of communications-carrying drones or other aircraft to act as temporary links when telecommunications go down in a disaster.

AT&T, Sprint and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International told the commission that the threat of interference from aircraft operating as “rapidly deployable aerial communications architecture” may cause more harm than good.

Story Continued Below

“While timely restoration of wireless communications networks remains essential, the use of aerial platforms will inhibit, rather than promote, this goal,” Sprint told the commission. “All wireless carriers submitting comments in this docket strongly oppose a regulatory regime for the use of aerial systems on existing cellular spectrum.”

AT&T echoed those comments.

“Aerostats have a very limited utility for restoring commercial networks and would be harmful to the restoration of commercial terrestrial networks, and thus AT&T opposes the use of aerostats to restore commercial networks following a disaster,” the company told the FCC in comments made public Thursday.

An aerostat is a lighter-than-air aircraft, but the commission didn’t limit its notice of inquiry to blimps or other types of balloons.

While APCO told the commission that it wasn’t opposed to some sort of emergency aerial deployment, it said Deployable Aerial Communications Architecture should be used only in the direst emergencies.

“Because of the potential for dangerous interference to systems unaffected by the disaster, use of DACA should be the last resort and used only when existing networks are inoperable and no other means of restoration is immediately available,” APCO argued. “Furthermore, to limit the potential for interference, DACA should only be deployed in the smallest area possible to address the emergency in question.”

AT&T contends that communications outages are usually too spotty for a DACA deployment to do much good.

“It is the exception, rather than the rule, that a disaster causes wholesale or widespread service disruption of commercial service during and following a disaster,” the company wrote. “More often, service disruptions are sporadic, with disabled cell sites dispersed throughout a commercial provider’s coverage area.”

But some companies that are already using the technology for military and other specialized purposes say there are ways to mitigate interference problems.

Setting aside some airwaves for use in a disaster, scanning technologies or directional antennas can make the technology work without harming other systems, Space Data Corp. told the commission.

“DACA technologies can help ensure the uninterrupted delivery of wireless communications during and immediately after a catastrophic event, an essential component of rescue and recovery efforts,” Space Data wrote.